


The Taste of Ink

by apodiopsys



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apodiopsys/pseuds/apodiopsys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a tattoo artist gets some really unusual customers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Ink

**Author's Note:**

> companion piece to [I Can't Get Enough](http://archiveofourown.org/works/290238).

You don’t know what to make of the two men that walk into the tattoo parlor. They stood outside for a long time and you watched them out of the corner of your eye through the window. The tall one out of the two is doing most of the talking, hands getting involved near the end as he uses them to deepen the point he’s making. Currently, he’s jabbing the palm of his left hand with the pointer finger of his right, and it looks like he’s making a list of... something. The smaller one just shakes his head, arms crossing over his chest stoically. You pretend not to have been watching them when they walk into the shop, tall one leading in the front.

“We’d like to get two tattoos done, please,” he says to you as you move from your station over to the counter, rolling the sleeves up your tattooed arms. The smaller one - and really, he actually isn’t that small, not when he’s up close like this. It’s the big one that makes him look small, they’re both six foot in actuality. You’re shorter than both of them.

He pulls a face and looks away and says, “No, _you’re_ getting a tattoo.” The tall one - the huge, freakishly gigantic one, sighs, “Dean, c’mon.” He shakes his head. At least you have a name for one of them now. You pick up the ballpoint pen that’s lying on the desk, clicking the back of it against your thigh and then tapping it against the counter. They’re staring each other down; clearly they have some sort of a Vulcan-mind-meld type thing going on, silently having a conversation that you can’t hear.

“So...” you clear your throat, pen still tap tap tapping against the tabletop. “One or two?” The one that’s called Dean says _one_ at the same time as the giant one says _two_ and the look you give them is thoroughly unimpressed. That doesn’t answer your question at all. They go back to doing their Vulcan-mind-meld thing and you’re having a hard time figuring out what’s going on. Instead, you clear your throat again (only louder this time) and look up at the ceiling. You don’t have the patience for this. “Which one of you is getting ink?” you say loudly and they finally stop staring at each other with flickering eyes and blink in your direction.

Finally, the tall one says, “Me, I am. Uh, I’m Sam.” He looks a little embarrassed, nudges at Dean with his elbow. Dean rolls his eyes and pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of his breast pocket, handing it to Sam who hands it to you. Flattened out and put down on the counter, you smooth your fingers over the edges, eyeing the design penciled onto the paper. It’s similar to things you’ve seen before, looks like some of the flash you have framed on the walls, but it’s special for some reason, stands out in a way that you can’t put your finger on.

“You can take a seat in the chair over there,” you say, jabbing your finger over your shoulder to the left. First you sketch over the design onto drawing paper, and then you go over to the giant - to where Sam is sitting in the chair and Dean is sitting to the other side of him, and say to him, “Where do you want it?”

Sam looks up at him. “On my chest.” He points right underneath his collarbone. You glance at the spot and start taking your tools out of the autoclave, saying, “Shirt off. You can put it over there,” and nod your chin in the direction of a closet.

“I usually get dinner before people start telling me to take my clothes off.” He smirks and sits up, pulling the grey t-shirt over his head. Sam runs a hand through his hair and wiggles his eyebrows obscenely, throwing his shirt at his - friend? brother? boyfriend? You don’t ask. - instead of getting up to put it away in the closet like you suggested. He settles back down in the chair and you find that he’s clean,all you need to do is disinfect his skin and you’re good to start tracing the design on already.

They’re both quiet, even once you start the needle to ink his skin. This isn’t painless, you know that for a fact, know it from personal experience due to the sleeves that decorate your arms, but he’s holding up like it’s a walk in the park. Give this guy some props. You wipe off some excess ink and then get to it again, finishing off the outline carefully. There’s a tiny flinch when you clean it again with soap and water and for some reason you feel satisfied that this guy _can_ actually feel pain. “It doesn’t hurt that much you know,” Sam says, and you think for one bizarre second that he’s talking to you and that he can read your mind, or maybe you were talking out loud or something.

But then Dean is accusing him of lying and Sam is agreeing with him, and you don’t think too hard about it. It doesn’t take too much to tell that these guys, these guys are _weird._ You start shading it in, filling in the carefully inked lines. “What’s it for?” you ask, and Dean answers for him. “Protection,” he says. His mouth closes after that, like he doesn’t want to say anything more. He clearly isn’t a man of words and that’s okay, neither are you.

-

The same two guys come in two days later. You recognize them while you’re finishing up another client, washing away the excess ink and putting a sterile bandage over it to protect it. They come in after he leaves, and Sam says, “He wants his done now.” You still don’t know what they are to each other, but you saw them holding hands when they left, see Sam squeezing his hand now. They’re together, you think. The two men know where to go; Dean sits in the same chair that Sam had two days ago, shirt already off and ready to go.

He looks like he wants to get this over with as soon as possible.

When you first press the needle down he whimpers. Your initial thought is that he has a much lower pain tolerance than his - than Sam. You keep going, inking in the outline but it’s _hard_ because he keeps shifting and making it difficult for you to make this a clean job. It doesn’t take too much time for you to work out that this isn’t a pain thing; not a pain thing in the way that, wow, this is really painful, but more of a, wow, this is really painful, it feels really good lets keep going. Dean isn’t the first person you’ve tattooed who’s enjoyed it, and one time there was this guy who came in your chair while you inked his ribs.

Moving on from outlining to shading and he’s still going. You doubt he’s realized it but there’s this constant, low, purring hum that’s come from him. At one point he yelps and then twitches so hard that the needle jerks - if the ink went out of the outline you’d probably have a good chance for getting sued for a bad tattoo job or something, but as it is, you manage to stay nicely inside. “Look,” you sigh. “I can’t do this if he doesn’t stop twitching, so can you like, get him to the bathroom and take the edge off or something so I can finish it?” You tip your head up and look at the mirror on the ceiling. Your eyes meet Sam’s when he glances up and you gesture in the direction of the aforementioned bathroom. He pulls him over and you put your tools down, wiping off counters with a wet washcloth to wait.

You try not to listen. They’re not quiet or discreet about what they’re doing. It makes you just a smidgen uncomfortable. Eventually you turn your CD player on, feeding a Led Zeppelin CD into the machine and waiting for it to start playback. It drowns out the most of the noises filtering out into the studio and you sigh, leaning against the table. You love your job, you really do.

“He should be fine now,” Sam says, coming out and into the studio first. Dean comes out and his hair is mussed and his pants are wrinkled, but he sits down and drapes himself over the chair, fluid and comfortable. You clean the area you’ve been tattooing and see them holding hands. “Okay,” you say, and get back to work, inking in the outline that you’d tattooed hours ago. It’s a curious thing, tattooing this man. It’s not like you’ve never seen people who enjoyed it but this is pleasure on a whole different level. You have sleeves up and down your arms, tattoos on your chest and shoulders and back. You know that it hurts, and yet this man is practically purring at the sensation of the needle pushing ink into his skin. “You actually like this,” you laugh. Dean smiles, and it’s like a mirror reflection, the smile shifting over to Sam’s face.


End file.
